The problem: fragmentation and inefficiency
When a mid-market B2B division prepared to separate from its parent company, the team faced a familiar challenge: disjointed systems, manual processes, and no clear marketing strategy. Their existing tech stack was cobbled together from multiple platforms: Salesforce Marketing Cloud for email, a legacy Umbraco CMS for their website, and a separate platform for publishing their trend reports. Each operated in isolation, leaving marketing and IT scrambling to piece together workflows, campaign execution, and reporting.
The lack of integration created several pain points:
- Manual, inefficient workflows: Contact management and campaign execution required time-consuming steps that stalled momentum.
- Data management risks: A planned one-way sync from Salesforce to HubSpot raised concerns about field mapping and duplicate records.
- Technical bottlenecks: IT roadblocks slowed down critical steps like domain connection and email setup.
- Lack of strategy: With a niche B2B customer base and a small team, marketing efforts defaulted to “just get an email newsletter out,” without a roadmap for engagement, automation, or long-term growth.
The solution: a hands-on, project-based approach
Instead of a theoretical training program, the consulting team embedded practical learning into the client’s most important initiative: the annual trend report campaign. Together, they built a HubSpot-powered landing page, form, and automated email follow-up sequence. This project served as both a critical deliverable and a learning experience, showing the client the value of centralized automation in real time.
Additional steps included:
- Guided integration: The team provided a clear roadmap for Salesforce-to-HubSpot integration, DNS setup, and email configuration—helping IT overcome sticking points.
- Pilot data migration: To safeguard against duplicate or messy records, they ran a test import of 25 records before migrating larger datasets.
- Reporting and analytics training: The client learned how to create dynamic lists for nuanced audience suppression (such as excluding accounts in active procurement cycles) and how to build custom reports that made engagement data actionable.
- AI exploration: Early exposure to HubSpot’s Content Remix feature introduced efficiency in content creation, showing the team how to scale campaigns without overextending resources.
The results: a functioning marketing hub with room to grow
- A working, automated marketing system: The trend report campaign went live with a professional landing page, form, and automated follow-up sequence.
- Improved data confidence: The marketing team developed processes for clean imports, ongoing list management, and duplicate suppression.
- A roadmap for growth: With HubSpot fundamentals in place, the client felt empowered to expand into advanced workflows, AI-enabled content, and deeper reporting.
The result was more than a successful campaign launch. The team gained the confidence and clarity to use HubSpot as a growth engine—transforming from reactive, manual processes into a scalable, automated marketing operation.
Key takeaways for B2B organizations
- Anchor onboarding in real campaigns to make training stick.
- Start small with pilot imports before migrating large datasets.
- Pair integration with clear IT roadmaps to avoid delays.
- Introduce automation and AI early, so teams see the efficiency gains in practice.
